More on God's Will On Earth as It Is In Heaven

Rachel Pridgen keeps a homeschooling blog that dips into some awfully subtle and intelligent observations from a faith perspective.

Here in her comments section she asks me about this post of mine: 

 On your blog last week you said, "Religious faith in the post 9/11 world has undergone a shift. Very properly, it's a crisis of the idea of 'God's will.' Who can believe in 'God's will' under these circumstances? Who can tolerate a God whose will is as flexible, malleable, variable as the human race itself?"

If we start from the premise that God's will is "on earth as it is in heaven," would it be appropriate to say that God's will is not malleable, variable and flexible; we just aren't playing our part very well? Perhaps God's response to "Come, Lord Jesus," is, "Be my vessel."

Thoughts?

This question is really almost dangerous.  It seems awfully simple.  But consider:

In the first place, there's the serious and difficult question of where "heaven" is that God's will exists in perfection.  Is this some sort of Platonist realm of perfections and ideas and forms?  A real "place" extended in space and time?  An unseen realm (and if unseen how do we dare metaphorize it as a "realm," and on what observations do we assert that it exists, let alone what its characteristics are)?  A heuristic idealization?

If we could get our teeth into that, we might ask,  What do we mean that God's will is done in heaven?  There is no contradiction of it?   Is this by virtue of God's omnipotence ("he wills it so it is so") or by virtue of the obedience of those there, and how is that obedience constrained?

Allowing for a moment that Jesus' prayer to God ("may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven") is totally authoritative on these questions and settles them without discussion or argument, there is a heaven of some sort and God's will is done there.   "God's will is 'on earth as it is in heaven'"?   Do we mean that nothing contradicts it?  Do we mean that all things are sort of automatically conforming to God's will?  Or will eventually?  Or what?

No, I think this is not at all simple, at least not taken as a matter of philosophy or theology.  Indeed, if this is about God, I think it makes matters far worse.

But Rachel's last thought strikes me as so productive that it might make sense of Christianity:

Perhaps God's response to "Come, Lord Jesus," is, "Be my vessel."

And this drives the believer back to that most urgent of questions, which is surprisingly not what the character of the omnipotent omniscient and self-sufficient God is.

It's rather, "What do I worship?"

And in the life and death of Jesus they may see self-sacrificial love writ huge.

And if the will of that god is not done, well, Christianity is simply underachieving, or demonstrating that it has no spirit, and no resurrection (because resurrection in some sense and a life of love are inseparable).

Fortunately for Christianity, that's a choice it makes anew all the time.

Comments

[Rachel]

Thank you so much for the post and response to my question. I'm truly honored to be linked here.

I knew that my question had the potential to be dangerous. Can: open. Worms: everywhere. Especially in regard to the specific nature of heaven. I love exploring those questions, and at the end of the day, I'm okay with not knowing all the answers. Unfortunately, I still have to go out and do something. I want my story to count for something. So I tend to fall back on the idea that God is truth. So I look for truth. And then I try to practice those things in an attempt to live the very nature of heaven in the here and now.

Love > fear. Generosity > greed. Forgiveness > bitterness.

So, I worship truth wherever I find it.

Is there a downside if it turns out that I'm wrong?

[Otter]

Thus Rachel:

Is there a downside if it turns out that I'm wrong?

I can't think that there is, if living well is your highest goal (and I see no reason to object to that).